Donations will help Recovery Café San Jose provide expanded hours and program services such as support groups, classes in job and life skills, shared meals, and social activities

After a childhood growing up a victim of human trafficking on the streets of San Jose, Diana Carreras was held prisoner by the grip of post-traumatic stress and depression.

It was sheer luck that she found Recovery Café San Jose; a friend asked for a ride to the downtown healing community and training center, a place Carreras hadn’t heard about before. But once there, the 59-year-old found the support that helped her overcome the emotional trauma that had consumed her for so long.

“When I first came in here, I was afraid to speak about my trauma,” Carreras said. “But for the first time I spoke about it here, I was free from it. I was not being held prisoner by it anymore.”

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Members of the Recovery Cafe San Jose are served lunch by Judy Kaiser (back), Kevin Martin, and Jan Kerans (front).

Since coming to Recovery Café, she no longer needs medications to deal with the PTSD and depression. And after Café counseling, she sees the streets in a different light: She walks the San Jose avenues that once haunted her with mission and purpose, helping out teens like she used to be, getting them out of a situation that had held her prisoner for years.

“I came in here a hermit, and now I come out a social butterfly,” Carreras said. “They really help you here, and they don’t judge. They accept you for who you are.”

Carreras is just one of the success stories from Recovery Café San Jose — a center to help individuals recover from whatever trauma, addiction or living situation they’re suffering from, be it drug or alcohol addiction, homelessness or mental health issues.

“We try to address the inner feelings of people, and everything that is said there stays there,” said Café manager, Lisa Willmes. “We want them to feel respected, treated like human beings — whatever they’re recovering from. We have people come in getting over over-eating, relationship problems or codependency addictions.”

Recovery Café San Jose started just over three years ago in the First Christian Church behind San Jose City Hall. Dana Bainbridge, the original founder, saw a Recovery Café in Seattle and decided to start one in Silicon Valley to help with San Jose’s homeless population. Although a part of the church physically, Recovery Café is a secular, separate nonprofit.

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Kevin Martin (left) and Tanya Bautista hang a collection of name tags of members.

The Café offers classes in their School for Recovery — eight-week long courses that teach members life skills such as cooking, which will culminate in a food handler’s certificate for employment. And all the while, students get counseling and meals.

There’s a personal touch from the start, and each day members are welcomed at the door and greeted by name.

“It is all a part of what we call our radical hospitality,” said Café’s executive director Ken Goldstein. “A lot of these people, when passed on the streets, people look away. Some of these people go days without having their presence acknowledged, so we show them that they do matter.”

To join the Café, those interested must attend an orientation meeting, held on Tuesdays, for new members. When they check in each day, members must have be clean of drugs and alcohol for over 24 hours and participate in a scheduled recovery circle — a support group where members help each other overcome issues — once per week. After going to their first recovery circle, they are members as long as they want to be.

There’s a lot of success stories. Steve, who used to live on the street in front of the Café, was a regular critic in the worst way, yelling obscenities at passing staff members. But one day he wandered in and got a warm reception from Willmes, who invited him to come to an introductory session.

“You’d let me come in, after all the horrible things I’ve said to you?” asked Steve, whose last name is being withheld by request.

“Of course!” replied Willmes. “If you’re ready, you’re welcome.”

Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group

Diana Carreras is a member of Recovery Cafe San Jose.

Now they don’t see Steve so often; he overcame his addictions and got a job at the SAP Center and in two years was recruiting other Café members to give them a similar opportunity.

“He was a model member,” Goldstein said, adding that they learned Steve had an advanced degree and a successful career before his addictions led to downfall. “Now he’s a member emeritus.”

The Café is maintained mostly by volunteers such as Judi Kaiser, who has been there since the early days after its inception.

“We’re a cross-section of the community,” Kaiser said of her colleagues. “People feel empowered once they’ve been here, by this community.”

Recovery Café is temporarily housed in the First United Methodist Church across from City Hall while their original home is refurbished. They’re expecting to be back home on Jan. 2, and at that time Goldstein said the goal will be a major upping of offerings. There will be a new commercial kitchen, a coffee bar for barista training, and more of everything they already do: additional culinary classes, more recovery circles and increased overall capacity, from 100 people a week to 300.

Wish Book donations will go toward hiring the necessary extra staff and adding hours to existing positions. Goldstein said that while many of the programs are volunteer-led, the planning and coordination of classroom activities, greeting and check-in, training of volunteers and data collection is all handled by professional staff.

He said, ultimately, he’d like to multiply the results they’re already seeing.

“There are a lot of success stories here,” he said. “People with PhDs and Masters — but when a disease like addiction hits, it shows no mercy. We’re here to provide that community of support for them while they recover from whatever they need to recover from.”

Staff writer Eric Kurhi contributed to this report.

Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group

Resident manager Andre Ellison talks with a member at the Recovery Cafe San Jose.

HOW TO HELP

Donations will help Recovery Café San Jose provide expanded hours and program services such as support groups, classes in job and life skills, shared meals, and social activities for people traumatized by addiction, homelessness, and mental health challenges. Goal: $20,000